If the Progressive Conservatives were at the wheel, Ontario’s auto sector would be up on blocks in the shop, according to Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne.

Wynne defended the billions of dollars her party has “invested” in the industry and blasted PC Leader Tim Hudak for opposing some of the bailouts over the years.

“Tim Hudak would destroy the auto industry in Ontario,” Wynne warned, adding even the federal Conservative government approved nearly $3 billion for GM and Chrysler in 2009. “Where we have said, ‘We’re there for you,’ he would say, ‘You’re on your own.’

“If the auto sector is destroyed, Ontario’s economy drives into the ditch. There’s no question about that,” she said.

In Cobourg, Hudak stood by his opposition to some of the bailouts, and shot back at Wynne for making the industry dependent on public funds.

“I understand why companies are asking for handouts, because the Liberals are in the handout business,” Hudak said, noting the province has shed 300,000 manufacturing jobs since the Liberals came to office.

“But that just rewards the well-connected and those with fancy lobbyists.”

Later Wednesday, Wynne toured the Toyota plant in Cambridge, which has received $173 million in taxpayers’ money since 2006. According to the Liberals, that investment has resulted in $1.2 billion in spending from Toyota.

Over the years, the Liberals have given the auto industry billions to save plants across southern Ontario, including $1.3 billion in 2009 to help GM and Chrysler avoid bankruptcy, $78.7 million to Ford in 2010 to revamp its Essex plant, another $70 million to Ford in 2013 to save the Oakville plant, and $48 million to parts giant Magna in 2011.

Earlier this year, Chrysler asked both Ottawa and Queens Park to cough up a portion of a $3.6 billion plan to revamp both the Brampton and Windsor plants.

At the time, Hudak called the request “extortion” since Chrysler was reportedly warning that without the public money, they might move operations elsewhere. Eventually Chrysler withdrew its request and went ahead with the work at both plants anyway.

The auto sector employs more than 400,000 Ontarians and adds about $13 billion to the provincial economy annually.